Christian Blogging Tips for Beginners – 10 Mistakes Bloggers Make

Today we continue on with the series on Christian Blogging Tips for Beginners!  Christian blogging comes with a LOT of mistakes, especially in the first year!

I have made my share of them!!  I spent the first year of blogging doing essentially everything wrong!  I look back at some blog posts and think “who wrote this???”

 

This page/post may contain affiliate links.  As an Amazon Associate, as well as an affiliate of other programs, this means if you purchase something using these links, I will receive a commission on qualifying purchases.  I may also have been compensated for linking to certain products in this post.  For more detailed information, please visit our Affiliate Disclaimer page

 

Worse than that are the mistakes I made in promoting my blog!

After taking a year off from blogging, I decided to come back and do things right!!  I immediately began taking courses and re-read books I read a year ago!  And I can tell you, I got more pageviews in my first full month back at blogging than I did at any point in time during the first year previously!!

So, in no particular order,  I am going to share with you some of the mistakes I made in promoting my blog that kept me from getting more traffic.

 

I am going to share with you some of the mistakes I made in promoting my blog!Click To Tweet

 

10 Mistakes Bloggers Make in Promoting Their Blog

Mistake #1 – Not learning and using SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  The short description is it basically determines if and where your site will rank in searches.  If you have poor SEO (or non-existent) your site will not be found in search results if someone is searching for a particular word or phrase.  In this post, I am not going to get into how you optimize your SEO but I suggest you find some great tutorials on it!!  Here are some of my favorites

GET YOUR BLOG ON (FREE)

GIRL BOSSES ROCK MEMBERSHIP PLAN  – This program totally changed my blog!

 

Mistake #2 – Not Using Pinterest to Market Your Blog

Pinterest is the source of the bulk of my traffic.  I do get quite a bit from other social media sources and also search engines but Pinterest is by far the #1 source.  If you are not actively promoting your posts on Pinterest, you are missing out on a lot of traffic!!  I suggest a business account AND using Rich Pins.  Here is how you can create Rich Pins on Pinterest

If you are not sure how to use Pinterest to market your blog, here are some links to great courses on it

The Profitable Pinner

Pinterest for Bloggers and Business

 

  

Mistake #3 – Not Using Vertical Pins

Ok maybe you already have your account set up and you are using Pinterest but you are not getting traffic and people aren’t re-pinning your content.

One mistake I made was not using Pinterest optimized or vertical pins!

Now, I will RARELY re-pin something that is not vertical.  The only way I will is if it is absolutely something I need, so I save it so that I have the link.  And many times if that is the case I will save it to a private board.

If I am sharing another blogger’s content, I will not do it if it is not vertical, because most group boards have rules against it.  Make your pins vertical if you want them to be shared!  Canva has some great templates to create Pinterest ready images!

 

Mistake #4 – Not Using Pinterest Group Boards

Mistake #3 mentioned group boards.  Group boards are essentially a group of people sharing content about a specific niche.  These boards allow members to post their own content and then typically ask they re-pin 1 or 2 pins for each pin they share.  It is a great way to have others reciprocate and share your content as long as you are being considerate and sharing others’ as well.

If you are a Christian or Messianic blogger, you are welcome to visit my group board and follow the steps in the description to be added!

 

Mistake #5 – Not Providing An Easy Way For People To Share Your Content

Ok, this one is now my biggest pet peeve.  I want to share someone’s blog post.  I read their post and I start looking for a way to share…and nothing!  There are no pinnable images, there are no Facebook share buttons, there are no Click to Tweet links….nothing!

I was there myself!

Bloggers have very little time and often read quite a few posts during their day.  They don’t have the added time it takes to hunt down a way to share on each post!

Utilize the Click to Tweet plugin if you use Word Press.

It is a great way to get people to tweet portions of your post!  Use Shareaholic or Social Warfare to place social media buttons on your post.  Place a vertical pinnable image in your post somewhere and use a plug in like Pin It (Shareaholic has a feature to do this) so people can just hover over it and pin the image!

People WANT to help share your content!  Just don’t make it difficult for them to do!

 

People WANT to help share your content! Just don’t make it difficult for them to do!Click To Tweet

 

Mistake #6 – Not Entering a Description On Your Pins

Whether you use a pin in your blog post or whether you are adding pins directly in Pinterest, a description is so important.

Place a brief keyword rich description in there along with some hashtags and you are good to go!   Tasty Pins is a great way to do this!  It will help you enter a description for Pinterest without using the Alt Text field, which is not meant to be for descriptions!

If you use Rich Pins it will give a snippet from your post but you still want to add a description as well!

 

 

Mistake #7 – Not Sharing Others’ Content

The blogging community is a sharing community and so is Pinterest!!  Pinterest rewards you for sharing other people’s pins!!  Your own pins will be featured more when you share more because Pinterest will see you as someone who shares valuable content!  So definitely re-pin!!  A LOT!!

Also, share in other ways!  Re-tweet another blogger’s tweets!  Share a blog post on Facebook!  If you want people to share your content and know who you are, sharing theirs is a great way to achieve that!

The blogging community is supportive so make sure you support them in return!

 

Mistake #8 – Not Utilizing a Scheduling Program for Pinterest

One pin and you’re done does not work for driving traffic to your blog.  You need to keep your pins cycling on Pinterest and the best way to do that is automate it.

Tailwind is the program I use to automate and schedule my pins!  It keeps my older content out there so old posts don’t die a slow death online!  You cannot spend your entire day manually re-pinning your older content (and newer).  You want multiple pins for one blog post!  So automate it to post to your group boards on a regular basis and you can set it and forget it!

If you want to learn how to do that there is some great training on it!

To sign up for Tailwind and get your first 100 pins for free, click here

 

 

Mistake #9 – Not Using Tailwind Tribes

If you are already using Tailwind but are not using Tribes you are missing out on traffic.  Tailwind Tribes are communities of a specific niche that function sort of like group boards and re-pin each other’s content.  There are also great chat functions within a tribe where you can ask questions, etc.
A good tribe can really boost your traffic.

 

Mistake #10 – Overloading a Blog Post With Images and Pop-Ups

I am all about a blog post having images…mine do!  But If I go to a post and it is nothing but images to scroll past to get to the post itself, I may not stay!

In addition, it slows your site down.  2-3 images on a post is more than enough.  People will check out if they have to click more than 2 or 3 times to see something or if they have to scroll more than 2-3 seconds to see the rest of your post.

Pop-ups are another issue.  One or two pop-ups is fine….having them on every page is going to make me leave your blog.

 

One Final Blogging Tip For Beginners

Read everything you can!!

One book for Christian bloggers that I highly recommend is By His Grace We Blog by Carmen Brown.

This book gives you the benefit of Carmen’s experience as a blogger and will help you avoid the many pitfalls I fell into!!  I wish I had read this book earlier on in my blogging journey!!

You can read more about Carmen and her book HERE on the guest post she did for my blog!

 

Some other posts you might enjoy:

CHRISTIAN BLOGGERS WANTED! – 3 BENEFITS OF STARTING CHRISTIAN LIFESTYLE BLOGS

BLOGGING FOR BEGINNERS – INCREASE BLOG TRAFFIC WITH THESE 3 SKILLS

CREATING PRODUCTS AS A BLOGGER